


home

by eichart



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Brotherly Love, Unconventional Concept of Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 03:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11118762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eichart/pseuds/eichart
Summary: Willy learns young that home isn't really something you look for, not something you see or chase --it's a feeling and sometimes it doesn't come when you look at four walls and a roof.





	home

**Author's Note:**

> As always, no connection to the wonderful brothers and I definitely can't speak to Alex being afraid of thunderstorms --100% made up. Hope you enjoy!!

Willy learns young that home isn't really something you look for, not something you see or chase --it's a feeling and sometimes it doesn't come when you look at four walls and a roof.

They've always been scattered to the wind it seems. It's part of the Nylander name, part of the way Willy grew up shuffled from here to there with changes in his father's contracts --different teams, different cities, same life; different houses ( same home ). There's a tenuous persistent thread in their summer house outside Stockholm; the center of this web their name seems to carve across the map of America, across the Atlantic and into golden Swedish soil. 

And there's Mom and Alex and the girls as well. It seems like there's always Alex, some extension of himself that doesn't really look like a mirror but understands him better than one anyway.

Nylanders have always been scattered to the wind and Willy learns young what home feels like so he knows how to find his way back. Willy learns home to be the way his mattress dips under Alex's weight during thunderstorms, the way their father makes eggs for breakfast, the way they can all pile on the couch in a tangle of limbs and laugh. He learns to chase that feeling, learns to trace it to its source and finds himself looking into Alex’s eyes.

And it seems his time to scatter comes all too soon, a mix of excitement and trepidation.

He plays for Modo and he  _ misses _ , though the ache is not so deep with the rumble of his father's laugh so near. But he only sees Alex through a screen, hears him through tinny speakers and feels homesickness carve a pit in his stomach.

( It's not really something he saw coming, this missing and odd sort of emptiness, not at all --but you know what they say, you only miss something after it's gone ).

He plays for the Marlies all the way across the ocean and loves Toronto and  _ misses _ . Örnsköldsvik feels like nothing compared to this seemingly endless space between them, and he misses like he's never felt absence before. It's different knowing Alex doesn't see the sun rise the same time he does; it’s  _ different _ knowing Skype and text messages can only cut a distance so short.

But they’re Nylanders and they’ve learned young how to find their way home.

And Willy finally finds his way home with his hood pulled low over his face, ears popping with rapidly changing altitude. There’s a lightness in his chest, an ache of a promise as he careens towards  _ home _ .

The front door doesn’t squeak anymore when he pushes it open and the light in the front foyer has changed. Alex’s hair is longer than he remembers it too, but the way his arms wrap tight around his frame, the soft lilt of his voice --those haven’t morphed in any ways that matter. And Alex clings to him in a way that might be embarrassing, but Willy think he might cling back too as the ache in his chest morphs to something warm.

_ Home is a feeling, Willy _ . 

Yeah. It is.

The sky is dark when night falls and the sun slips below the horizon ( the same sun, the same horizon for both of them ), and in the distance there’s the dull roar of thunder. Alex is too old to be afraid of thunderstorms anymore, but Willy says nothing when his mattress dips late that night when rain lashes against the windows and maybe had been waiting for it too.

And he waits for Alex’s breath to deepen into sleep, listens to the crack of thunder and feels the thud of his heart against his ribs. He waits and it settles him into ease, nudges that warm feeling of  _ home _ and he can finally close his eyes feeling complete.

He goes back to Toronto and it’s  _ easier _ , because home comes with him, plants roots not thirty minutes away. 

( And in some ways it’s harder, knowing they’re so close, knowing  _ Alex _ is close, barely a phone call away ).

It’s not that he never aches for Sweden, because he misses it too --but in different ways. In the way he sometimes misses old, worn out familiarity and the face of friends. Sweden is a home too in many ways, a country of an anchor in a tumultuous, bouncing childhood. But it’s not  _ home _ in the way it settles in his heart. The way Alex’s absence can eat at his insides sometimes.

He goes to the apartment in Mississauga, all unfamiliar walls and odd sort of layout, but Alex’s laugh bounces off the walls and he still feels like he’s come home--

( --and he has, because his home was never really the conventional kind, now was it? ).

They ask him where home is sometimes, and Willy hasn’t found a way to answer. Born in Calgary, grown in Tampa and Chicago and Stockholm --he’s a Nylander, a name held to athletic excellence and a name that may as well have nomad scripted into it as well. They  _ ask _ him where home is and he thinks of Alex and the text he sent five minutes ago; he thinks about thunderstorms and the way Alex’s shoulders used to quiver beneath his arm; he thinks about Sweden all gold like their hair and summer laughter.

He says, ‘Toronto’ because he knows that’s what they want to hear and it’s not really a lie. Because he’s a Nylander and was taught young that home isn’t a place but a feeling. And he feels that here with Auston and Mitch and Mo and Zach and the team. There are days he can feel it as tangible as the ache in his legs after a workout. 

And there are days that he can’t.

But they ask him where home is and he can’t say ‘ _ Alex’ _ even if it wouldn’t be a lie.

Because he knows this as surely as he knows his life belongs to the ice and Swedish blood pumps through his veins despite Canadian soil. Because there’s a thunderstorm in Toronto and Willy wants to go find Alex. Because he can fill his apartment with lost memoria, with pictures, with blankets and candles that smell like the summer house and there will always be this blank space he can’t fill.

Because they’re Nylanders and they’ve been taught how to come back home. Because there’s one thing Willy truly couldn’t bear to lose. 

Because scattered to the wind he knows he’ll always want to come back to this, to a constant, to  _ Alex _ .

To home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a really spur of the moment flash fic that I mostly pumped out to celebrate a milestone on my [blog](http://thenylanderbros.tumblr.com), but I hope you enjoyed!! As always, if you loved, comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated!!!


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